


the bones in the closet are my own

by pawn_vs_player



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Alternate Canon, Gen, Gender Issues, Gender Roles, Howard Stark's A+ Parenting, Identity Issues, Implied/Referenced Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Implied/Referenced Drug Use, Implied/Referenced Suicide attempt, James "Rhodey" Rhodes is a Good Bro, Jewish Howard Stark, Judaism, Language of Flowers, Maria Stark Has Issues, Mother-Son Relationship, POV Alternating, Self-Esteem Issues, Stereotypes, Tony Stark Needs a Hug, Trans Male Character, Trans Tony Stark, Transphobia, create the content you want to see in the world, sorry i should have tagged that earlier, there's not enough trans stories so i'm writing my own
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-08-02
Updated: 2018-12-24
Packaged: 2019-06-17 11:28:01
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 7,286
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15460356
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pawn_vs_player/pseuds/pawn_vs_player
Summary: Tony Stark has been fighting since before the day he was born.He knows the hardest battle to win is the battle to be yourself.(Once upon a time, Howard Stark had a daughter.)





	1. a grave never dug, a body never buried

**Author's Note:**

> chock full of headcanons that i should probably have split up into their own fics. oh well.  
> 

Maria wants to name their child after her grandmother or grandfather. Howard wants to name the child for his aunt or himself. They reach a compromise.

Their daughter is born on May 13, 1970. Her mother could not be prouder.

Her father leaves the hospital to get a drink.

* * *

Howard Stark never wanted a daughter. He wanted an heir. A girl would be frilly and fancy and silly - unsuited for engineering or business.

Maria Carbonell always wanted a daughter. She wanted a sweet little girl who she could teach piano and violin to, a little princess who would like flowers as much as Maria did.

(Edwin Jarvis would have been happy with any child his employer had. He'd been waiting for years to hear the patter of little feet and the music of a child's laughter.)

(Ana Jarvis would have been happy with any child. The chance to love a child, after all her failures - she never cared about who the child was, only that there was one.) 

-

Maria falls asleep while her baby is still nursing. Ana has been keeping her company through the past four hours of labor; Edwin was banished to the waiting room, as a man who wasn't even the father.

The baby frees her mouth and wriggles, chubby little hands bumping against her mother's chest. Ana, mouth trembling, scoops the baby into her arms. Maria needs her rest, after all.

Ana smooths her hand across the baby's dusting of dark hair. The baby's face is puffy and her skin is red, her little hands curled into fists and mouth pursed in a pout. An hour ago, she was covered in blood and screaming like a banshee.

Ana has never seen something more beautiful.

She begins to sway, humming absentmindedly under her breath. Maria has spoken at length about teaching her child the Italian lullabies of her childhood, but Ana thinks her employer will forgive her if the baby learns a few Hungarian songs as well. Without thinking, Ana wanders toward the window with the baby tucked against her chest. The room is cold, and Ana imagines that it's more uncomfortable for the baby than for her. She adjusts the baby against her chest and draws back the curtains to let in a little sunlight. 

There is a slight pressure against her chest. She looks down.

The baby's fist is pressed against her collarbone. As Ana looks, the little hand rises and thumps back down again. The baby's head lifts. (Ana's lungs hitch as she is transfixed by the darkest, deepest eyes she has ever seen.) 

"Hello," she whispers, voice catching. "Hello, little one." 

The baby hits her chest again. Ana laughs a little. "What is it, are you hungry?"

The baby pounds her fist again, blinks those big dark eyes, and yawns. 

Ana's heart skips a beat. 

She presses her nose against the baby's dark hair and closes her eyes, fighting back the burn of tears. This is not her baby. She will never have a baby.

(She loves this baby more than anyone else in the entire world.)

Maria stirs. "Nn... wh-where's-"

"Here, mistress," Ana says quickly, lifting her face. "I apologize, I believed sleep would help you."

Maria looks at her for a long moment. Ana feels her cheeks flush with shame. She steps back toward the bed, the baby wriggling in her arms.

"It's alright, Ana," Maria says eventually. "She... she is something."

"She is," Ana agrees, and hands the baby over.

Maria looks down at her daughter, at those big dark eyes. She offers her baby a finger, which she quickly grasps. "Ciao, mia carina," Maria murmurs, Ana's hand on her shoulder. "I love you."

* * *

Her name is Natasha, for Howard's aunt. (Her name was Nastasia Abigail Staerchter, and she died forty years ago, because when her brother's family fled she planted her feet and refused to leave her home.)

Her name is Amalia, for Maria's grandmother. (Her name was Amalia Giorgiana Ognetto, and she died only a few years ago, before Maria could return to visit her.)

Her name is Stark, for her grandfather's choices and her mother's acquiescence. 

(Maria Carbonell dropped her middle name to keep her maiden name. Maria Carbonell has never let go of where she came from. Maria Carbonell knows the importance of legacy and heritage and knows that, sometimes, they are one and the same.)

(Howard Stark is the second of his name, the son of a refugee and an entrepreneur and a liar. Howard Stark is circumcised and he paid off everyone he's ever slept with to keep that quiet. Howard Stark eats bacon and created weapons to fight the Nazis and punched a man for saying the Holocaust 'wasn't that bad'.)

Her name is Natasha Amalia Stark.

(In another life, her name is Margo Alma Staerkter.)

Her name is Natasha Amalia Stark. She has her father's eyes and her mother's curls, her grandfather's nose and her great-aunt's mouth. She likes mango and hates mint. She screams when she is hungry, she hits when she is being held, and she never takes her eyes off the person tending to her.

(In another life, her father loves her so very much.)

* * *

The media is waiting outside the hospital when Maria and her daughter are released. For one of the few times in his life, Howard Stark tells the reporters to back off, get the hell away, go find another corpse you vultures.

(There are no pictures of the newborn Stark in the papers. There is no name published. There is not even a gender.)

(All there is is Howard Stark, angry and red in the face as he yells, and Maria Carbonell-Stark, long hair limp and eyes tired as she gets into the car.)

-

"I haven't minded paparazzi," Howard Stark tells the interviewer, "because the publicity is good for the company and I have nothing to hide."

"This is different," Howard Stark says into his microphone, "because my child shouldn't have to grow up watching for vultures circling overhead."

-

Natasha Amalia Stark lives a sheltered life. The Stark Mansion is closed to all but staff and residents. Once or twice a reporter hops the fence; one is chased out with a garden hoe, the other with a bellowing Howard Stark. 

(Ana Jarvis says to her husband, "It is like the story. The beast in the castle, yes? But this time it is the beauty.")

(Edwin Jarvis says to his wife, "Don't let Howard hear you say that, dear.")

Natasha Stark does not know the flash of the cameras or the squeal of the microphone. Natasha Stark does not know her father's hand on her shoulder or the song of the workshop.

Natasha Stark knows the resonance of her mother's voice and the clink of the ice in her father's glass, the notes of her mother's piano and the ringing of metal in her father's workshop. Natasha Stark knows the faded gold of her mother's hair and the backlit amber of her father's drink, the shadows under her mother's eyes and the tremble in her father's fingers.

Natasha Stark knows the low hum of Jarvis' voice as he reads and the muffled squeak of Ana's shoes when she dances, the clattering melody of Jarvis making dinner and the scratching harmony of Ana's needle through cloth. Natasha Stark knows the upturn of Jarvis' eyes when he smiles and the bitten-back grin on Ana's mouth, the tight line of Jarvis' lips and the shadows behind Ana's gaze.

-

Natasha Stark is a girl. 

Natasha Stark lives in a mansion where the press can't see her, because Howard Stark has a daughter when he wanted an heir, and he hides her away for her own protection as much as for his own shame.

Natasha Stark lives in a world of music and flowers and thread, because Maria sings when she plays the piano and Jarvis shows her the gardens and Ana teaches her to fix her own clothes.

Natasha Stark is the apple of her mother's eye and the bane of her father's life.

-

When Natasha is three, learning to speak and walking quite well, she finds her father in the kitchen. He is staring into a glass. There is an empty bottle next to the sink.

"Father," she says. (She knows not to call him anything else.) "If I was a boy, would you like me?"

(She knows not to say,  _Would you love me?_ )

Howard Stark looks at his daughter, three years old and solemn-faced, his own eyes staring back at him. Her skirt is smudged, her hands dirty. He's heard Jarvis scolding her over caring for her hands, but the little girl continues to dig in the garden without restraint. Her hair is in two braids on the sides of her face, bangs brushed away from her forehead. She has his father's nose and his aunt's name, and for a moment, he lets himself see a little boy instead. 

(Howard Stark's son has dirty hands and ragged fingernails. His clothes are messy because no good mechanic or engineer stays clean for long. His eyes are bright and dark and he will learn how to create in Howard's lab and he will light eight candles every winter. He has his mother's curls and his father's eyes and he is himself, not the ghosts of women left behind to die.)

He doesn't say anything. He takes a drink. (Howard Stark has done many things in his life, and he will do more, but one thing he will never accomplish is understanding how to be a father to a daughter.) 

Howard Stark's daughter nods. "Goodnight," she says, and she leaves.

-

Natasha Amalia Stark is Howard Stark's daughter. That is all she is. That is all she will ever be.

* * *

Natasha Stark celebrates her fourth birthday in the garden. Peggy Carter brings her husband and tells Natasha stories. Maria gives her daughter a book of sheet music. Jarvis bakes her favorite cake. Ana teaches her a new dance and weaves flowers into her braids. Howard has a drink and ruffles his daughter's hair.

Twelve days later, as Maria cries in the garden and Ana hands Jarvis dresses to burn, Howard Stark introduces his son to the world. 


	2. hollowed out my bones to hide my life inside

The conversation, when it happens, goes like this:

"You don't have a daughter," Howard Stark's child tells him, eyes solemn and mouth firm. "I'm a boy."

"I'm sorry, Mama," Maria Carbonell's baby tells her, eyes guilty and mouth nervous. "I'm not your carina, I'm your carino."

"Jarvis," says the child whose parents were never going to be enough, "call me Master, please, not Mistress."

"Ana," says the child who, in another life, is truly hers, "my name isn't Natasha."

* * *

Howard Stark (junior, but no one remembers that) wanted to name his son Anthony. It's an old family name; Howard carries it, yes, but so did his uncle and his grandfather. (Yehuda Antonin Stadtler was a Russian bear of a man. He was a carpenter, and he made the bird that sits on Howard's desk. He died before Howard was born. His son, Josef Antal, took the spelling from a Hungarian mother. He was a miner, then a soldier. Howard has his papers and handgun locked away in the basement.) 

(Howard Stark (junior, but no one else remembers his father) wanted to name his son Anthony, because Howard Stark was American through-and-through. His father left the old country behind with his parents and his sister and his name. Howard Stark (the second, the only) was a patriot, an American, and an innovator: Howard Stark (the second, the last) would carry on his father's legacy.)

Maria Carbonell wanted to name her son Edoardo, for her grandfather. Her grandfather was a tailor and a storyteller; he made the best shirts in town and he told the best yarns. He had a flushed face and nimble fingers, and sharp eyes despite his age. He taught Maria to fix her own clothes and to make them, too. He taught Maria to be prudent and observant. Edoardo Arnaldo Ognetto was wise and skilled, and kind despite everything.

Howard Stark always wanted a son. Maria Carbonell always wanted a daughter.

-

(Once upon a time, Howard Stark laid a hand on the curve of his wife's stomach and said, "Do you think it'll be a girl or a boy?")

(Once upon a time, Maria Carbonell said, "I'll love it either way.")

(Once upon a time, Howard Stark said, "I hope it's a boy. He'll get far in life.")

(Once upon a time, Maria Carbonell did not say, "I'll love it either way, but I want a daughter. She'll go wherever she wants to.")

-

Maria Carbonell sits in the garden under an aspen tree. Her hands are shaking. Her hair is limp around her face and her eyes are wild. 

She is surrounded by blue and purple anemone blooms. She had planted them only the week before, Ana at her side, her little girl smiling and scooping up worms from the dirt to get them away from the trowels. Her knees are stained green. Her throat is sore and if she spoke, her voice would be rough and strained.

(A bottle of whiskey is missing from Howard's cabinet. There is broken glass on Maria's bedroom floor.)

Maria Carbonell always wanted a daughter, but she'd said she would love a son anyway.

( _I haven't changed, Mama,_  said the child in her room, hands trembling.  _I'm still me, I promise. I just... I was never a girl. I just didn't understand before. I-I'm sorry..._ )

Once upon a time, Maria Carbonell felt a kick in her stomach and thought,  _You'll be deadly in heels._ Once upon a time, Maria Carbonell looked in the mirror and thought,  _Will my daughter have my hair?_ Once upon a time, Maria Carbonell married a rich man and thought,  _My baby will never feel hunger like I did._

(Maria had hoped. She had tried so hard not to, but she had hoped.)

Maria Carbonell sits under an aspen tree, in a sea of anemone blossoms. Her knees are stained green and her throat burns. She cannot see through her tears. 

( _I'm a boy, Mama_ , her baby said, Howard's eyes innocent and scared in her grandfather's face.)

Maria Carbonell weeps.

* * *

This is what it means to be the child of Howard Stark:

You own nothing but for what no one can take from you. The money you spend is your father's, the music you play is your mother's, your name is the echo of ghosts that sit on your parents' shoulders. You do not own your name, your body, your lessons, or your future; all you own are your memories, your choices, and the loyalty of those who love you.

This is what it means to be the child of Maria Carbonell:

You have music in your blood and grace in your bones. You sing Italian lullabies to yourself when you are hurt or tired, you fall only where you mean to land, you know the keys of the piano like your own heartbeat. You are curly-haired and clever-fingered and bright-eyed; you fall in love too easily, you cling to people too tightly, and you know that nothing lasts forever.

-

This is what it means to be Anthony Edward Stark:

You wear a skin that belonged to a girl buried in her mother's heart. You take the drink your father gives you because he said  _It'll make you a man_ and you are willing to do just about anything for that. You cut your fingers and burn your arms in his workshop because you're too small to use his tools but you are a Stark and you are made of iron and you will do anything you put your mind to. You trail silently after your mother in the evenings after Howard has kicked you out of his space and wish that she would look at you and see that you are still her baby.

* * *

A memory: Ana Jarvis sits on a yellow bedspread, a worn book open in her hands. A little girl with messy curls sits against the headboard, a pillow clutched in her arms, and listens as Ana tells her a story.

Howard Stark walks past the doorway, glass in his hand, and stops. "Don't read her that shit," he says. (He does not slur. The little girl is surprised; she has seen how many glasses Jarvis has carried out of the workshop today.) "It's not real." He takes a sip, stares the girl in the eyes. "Fairy godmothers don't exist. You want a happy ending, you gotta make it yourself."

He walks away. Ana Jarvis closes the book and pets the girl's hair.

The girl does not forget. Even when the girl does not exist anymore, her body remembers.

-

(This is what it means to be Anthony Edward Stark:

Magic is fake, but science is real. Stark men have iron in their spines and magnesium at their fingertips. Happy endings require effort and sacrifice, and maybe they're not even that happy in the end.)

-

Anthony Edward Stark is four (is twenty-three days) when Howard Stark (Jr) releases a picture to the _New York Times_. In it, his son is fitting the last puzzle pieces of a motherboard into place. The article, when it runs, is titled  _The Second Coming of Stark._

(Howard Stark, Senior, was a small-town mechanic who did well for himself and never left the state. No one remembers him but his son and what remains of the family he left behind.)

There is a brief interview with Howard Stark's son that runs with the picture. These are the first words he ever speaks to the public. 

_"Hello, Anthony. I'm -"_

_"My name is Tony."_

* * *

This is what it means to be Tony Stark: 

You own nothing but what you make your own.

* * *

Tony Stark makes his debut in a grease-covered shirt, hands black with oil and hair clumped with sweat. His eyes are bright and his voice loud.

(Ana Jarvis says to her husband, "He sounds so confident, yes? Like his father. He is so young to sound like that."

Edwin Jarvis says to his wife, "He is trying to sound like his father, but don't let Master Howard hear that.")

-

Maria Carbonell makes one public appearance in the year following her son's introduction to the world. She runs an international charity organization, after all; no matter what her own problems may be, she has a duty to help with the problems of others.

"Are you alright?" Janet Pym asks, laying a hand on Maria's shoulder. (The other hand holds a glass of champagne. Her nails are painted pale yellow to complement her dress.) "You look dreadfully pale."

"I'm fine," Maria says, looking into her own glass. (It is the dark amber of her husband's eyes. Her child's eyes.) She takes a drink. "Come on, help me get my cards in order for the speech."

-

(This is what it means to be Maria Carbonell:

You wear your hair in a bun and put on your makeup even when you don't leave the house. You kneel in the garden and work alongside the men you hired to keep your plants alive. You sleep in a bed alone, straining to hear the clanging of your husband's workshop that never seems to stop. You dream of your daughter cold and still in a coffin, a little boy wearing her skin. You cannot look at your child anymore. You cannot speak to your child, or about your child. You sit alone in your room with the door locked and stare at the pill bottle Ana thought she threw away, trying to convince yourself to put the pills back inside.)

* * *

"Mama," Tony Stark says, grimy fingers tugging at the hem of his shirt. "Mama, are you okay?"

Maria is clad in pale blue, her long hair a pale river down her back. Her skin is as cold and white as ivory. She sits on a bench in the garden and she does not speak. 

"Mama," Tony says again, stepping closer. (What he does not say:  _Mama, please, look at me. Please, speak to me. Please, just **see me.**_ ) "Mama, ch'e male?"

There is no answer. (She has not said anything to Tony for three weeks, two days, and seventeen hours.) 

A gardener stands up from pulling weeds. "Go inside, mister Stark," he says, not unkindly. "She's in one 'a her states. She'll snap out of it eventually."

Tony fiddles with his sleeve and doesn't look away. "Are you sure?"

"Mm-hm. She does this every once in a while. She'll be fine."

"Okay," Tony says finally. He approaches her, though, doesn't leave just yet. (This is closest he has been to his mother in two weeks, five days, and eight hours: close enough to hear her breathing and smell her perfume.) "I, I made this for you, Mama." He places a small metal bloom into her lap. It is silver, polished and intricately sculpted. "It won't wilt, ever. And you don't have to water it!" 

Maria says nothing. She stares past him, stares at something no one else can see.

Tony bites his lip, backs away. "I... I'll see you later, Mama." Another step back. He can't hear her breathing anymore, but he can see her chest moving. (It's the only sign that she isn't a statue, other than the breeze blowing in her hair.) "Te amo," he whispers, and then he flees.

-

(This is what it means to be Maria Carbonell's son:

You see your mother at a distance. It is a miracle to touch her, to hear her speak. It is a blessing to have her look at you. You dream of bygone days when you sat in her lap and laughed as she tickled your belly, sun streaming down on you both, her pet names in your ears. Your mother does not speak to your father except in whispers when you are supposed to be in bed. Your mother drifts through the halls like a ghost, when she leaves her room at all. Your mother rarely speaks to anyone, even her friend Ana. Your mother spends more and more time at home, but you see her less and less. You miss her.

You wonder if this is your fault.) 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> italian translations - "ch'e male?" means "What's wrong?" and "Te amo" means "I love you".  
> Idk when the next chapter will be out... probably some time in the next couple weeks? But don't hold me to that. (Unless I get some comments. Those motivate me to update like nothing else.)


	3. trying to outrun your own shadow

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this would have been up earlier, but i've been in a cabin w/o wifi for a week and i could neither edit nor upload -_-''

Tony Stark wears pants with patched knees and brown shirts because he cannot keep his clothes clean. He spends hours in the workshop with his father, learning how to create. (Jarvis brings down food and reminds Howard that his son needs to sleep. Tony pretends he can't hear Howard telling Jarvis that he knows how to raise his own son.) His hands are grimy, grease under his nails and oil staining his fingers. Tony keeps his hair short, curls flattened down with gel to keep them out of his eyes. He passes Howard's tests and designs a new scope for a sniper rifle. (He is seven years old.)

His father is proud of him.

-

Tony has scars, now. A shiny, circular burn on his left palm, when he'd dropped the welder and grabbed the wrong end; a thin line on his shin, a reminder to keep a careful distance from sharp scrap metal; a diamond-shaped dent in his hip, from a misfired prototype. His fingers are nicked and scratched, his hands callused. His skin is ridged, almost sharp; the sleeves of his fancy clothes catch on the hinge of his thumbs and scrape against the lines of his palms.

-

A memory:

Maria holds her daughter's hands, thumb rubbing circles against a thin wrist. "Your hands are so smooth, Mama," the little girl said. "Father's are all rough."

"I take care of my hands, carina," Maria explains. "I use lotion and I wear gloves when I garden. Your father works with metal, and he doesn't wear gloves."

"Oh," the little girl murmurs, still fascinated by the softness of her mother's palms.

"Take care of your hands, bambina, and they'll be just as soft as mine." Maria smacks a kiss against her daughter's elbow. The little girl twitches, giggling.

-

Tony Stark's hands are not soft. He works with metal and he doesn't wear gloves. (No one makes heavy-duty gloves to fit a seven-year-old.) 

Tony Stark is an engineer. He gets his hands dirty and roughed-up because production requires work, and Tony Stark is not afraid of work.

* * *

(This is what it means to be Ana Jarvis:

You watch your friend vanish inside your employer. You watch your employer vanish into a drifting cloud of pale hair and pale skin and pale skirts, a ghost who has not yet ceased to breathe. You watch your husband's employer banish him upstairs for speaking as a friend. 

You watch the baby you held in your arms wander after the ghost of his mother, hoping endlessly that she will turn and look at him. You watch the child you once wished was your own practically move into his father's workshop and drink his father's offered liquor so he won't be a disappointment. You watch a little boy strive to meet standards no one is equipped to reach.

You watch your home fall apart around you.

You are forbidden to help.)

-

(This is what it means to be Edwin Jarvis:

You watch your wife withdraw from the world, following her employer's example. You watch your wife go to sleep hours before sundown, put in orders for anti-depressants under two names, and sew pair after pair of pants. You watch your friend introduce his son to the Stark legacy - create, build, drink, smile, invent, drink, smile, talk, improve, drink, smile - and tell his son he's proud of him. You watch your friend building his armor against you and your advice; you watch yourself fall out of his favor. You watch your friend's wife, your wife's friend, become a shadow in blue and ivory.

You watch a little boy avoid sleep and food because that's what his father does. You watch a little boy drink alcohol without a flinch because that's what his father does. You watch a little boy make weapons and wear oil like a second skin because that's what his father does. You watch a little boy bear pain without a sound and talk on and on without ever saying a thing because that's what his father does. You watch a little boy ruin himself because that's what his father does.

You watch your friend prime his child for ruination. 

You are forbidden to help.)

* * *

When Tony Stark is eight (four and three months and eighteen days), he meets Obadiah Stane.

He greets Tony with a smile and a chocolate bar, swings an arm around Howard's shoulder and says  _The kid's a kid, Howard, he's been doing good work, right? Why not let him have a treat?,_  grins down at Tony benevolently. 

Tony gives Obadiah a small smile, a polite nod. Says, "Thank you Mr Stane," and, "I'll eat it later," and, "May I go back to my project now, Dad?"

"Hard worker," Obadiah tells Howard when Tony has left the room. "You've raised a good kid, Howard. Good heir."

Tony nods to himself from behind the doorjamb.

-

Tony is Howard Stark's son, a little boy in a world of machinery and alcohol and war schematics. He follows his father's path without stepping on Howard's heels, balancing genius and respect. Tony files all his own patents under his own name. 

Tony Stark is Howard in miniature, the perfect heir in the making, an experiment reaching the ideal outcome. For Howard, his son is an accomplishment and a validation in one small human, both his brilliant son and his greatest creation, living proof that Howard Stark can make more than war.

For Obadiah Stane, Tony Stark is the keys to the kingdom: a genius in the making, a little prince struggling to hold the scepter, endless potential without a clear goal. Tony Stark will carry on the empire, as good if not better than his father, but he is a child still, ready to be molded. If Obadiah plays his cards right, he'll shape the future of the entire world from behind the Stark throne.

-

In another world, Tony Stark is a neglected little boy desperate for his father's approval. In another world, Obadiah's genial grin and careful encouragement are both a blessing and a reward to strive for. In another world, Tony Stark ties himself into the marionette strings.

This is not that other world.

-

Once upon a time, Howard Stark and Maria Carbonell had a daughter. She did not live to see her fifth birthday, but she left behind four years of lessons for the boy that would come after her. 

The first thing Maria Carbonell taught her daughter about men: look behind the smile.

* * *

"I could have sworn this was still half-full," Ana Jarvis says to herself with a frown. She is shaking a bottle of pills. The two or three left inside click loudly against each other and the container. "Maybe I spilled some?"

-

Maria Carbonell is crying, choked sounds hidden in one pale hand. She has not left her room in three days. A plate of food is rotting on the floor. She wants to scream, but the ruckus inside her head is already too much.

Her fingers scrabble desperately through her bedside drawer, searching for the salvation in a pilfered bottle. When she finally finds her prize, she does not read the label: her eyes are blurry with tears, squeezed shut against the pain. When the lid opens, pills scatter across her skirt. She swallows them dry, six in quick succession.

She closes her eyes against the world and prays.

-

It is intensely, uncomfortably strange to be in his mother's bedroom. He only barely remembers the last time he was here, years and years ago now. It looked different then.

(Tony Stark has been in his mother's bedroom exactly once: to tell her that she had a son.)

He hadn't really wanted to come in (if his mother doesn't want him around then he won't be around) but Ana had been panicking and Tony knows how to pick locks because Howard doesn't want his son to be a helpless damsel. Jarvis was busy with Ana, so Tony had to be the one to come in. (Howard isn't home. Howard hasn't been home for weeks. He's in the Arctic, searching for a plane and a friend.)

"Mama?" he says hesitantly. Her suite isn't that big, just the bedroom and attached bathroom. "Mama, dove sei?"

His hands are shaking. "Ana is worried. She says you've been in here for three days. Che male? Sei malata?"

Tony moves forward into the room. It's dark, the curtains drawn and all the lights turned off. Something is making a faint rattling sound; the radiator, maybe? There is a heavy, awful smell - something rotten. He's scared until he steps into a plate of uneaten food. He'd be disgusted any other time, but just now he is filled with relief. His mama isn't a rotting corpse. She's not dead. She might not be okay, but she's not dead.

"Mama?" He steps around to the other side of the bed. 

He screams.

-

When Tony Stark is nine (five and eight months and twenty-three days), he finds his mother unconscious and barely breathing in her room. She is admitted to the hospital for a drug overdose. Within hours, reporters are clustered around the building, shoving at each other and hospital staff to get inside for their story.

-

A lesson Maria Carbonell did not mean to teach her son: hide weakness at all costs. The world will offer no mercy.

A lesson Maria Carbonell taught her son by mistake: abnormality is unforgivable and to be hidden. No one loves a deviant.

-

When Tony is ten (six and three days), a story is printed about Howard's "problem" with alcohol. The article is stuffed with pictures of the bottles in the Stark's garbage, the racks of wine in the basement, the massive glass cabinet where Howard keeps his best whiskies and scotch. The paper is bombarded with criticism for it,  _he's a veteran, let him cope how he needs to cope_ and  _all the great creators drink_ and  _every man has his vices_ and  _you're printing trash about a man's whiskey when the Reds are everywhere_ _?_ and  _the man has a right to privacy._

Howard fires most of the staff and rehires half as many. "No talkers in this bunch," he tells Tony, placing a new bottle in the cabinet to replace an empty one. "Good thing we don't let 'em in the workshop. Imagine if they sold my designs? Russia would have a field day."

-

A lesson Tony Stark learns on his own: the failings of a woman are bigger news than the failings of a man. What haunts a man for an hour might haunt a woman for a lifetime.

A lesson Tony Stark never forgets: if the press wants a story, give them one. It's better than letting them dig far enough to find one you didn't want them to see.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> italian translations: "dove sei?" means "where are you?", "che male?" (if you don't remember from last chapter) is "what's wrong?", and "sei malata?" is "are you sick?" (feminine).  
> sorry for the cliffhanger lol, next chapter should be up soon


	4. let flowers grow over my body

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i know this hasn't been updated since august, but i have a REASON, okay  
> my school does something called 'writing semester' for first-term juniors (me). my class has been writing one (1) essay per week since september. i have been totally burned out in the writing department until this week, bc i'm on VACATION, _FINALLY,_ so i can write for myself again! (i also saw _into the spider-verse_ which inspired me like nothing else, lemme tell ya.)  
>  tldr: was busy, am sorry. and i got this up right in time for the holidays, too! consider this an early christmas present from me. <3

Maria comes home in the summer to a garden full of dahlias, orchids, and irises, the occasional flowering rosebush and patch of violets adding color to the grounds of the Stark manor. She doesn't shake with cravings anymore, or cry out with pain. She is still pale and thin, skin papery and eyes undercut with shadow, but she is clean. Howard paid for her six months of rehab and the cheque for a year of therapy is already signed, waiting to be cashed. 

There's a press release the day she returns. She is photographed with a smile, sitting in her garden. She says the center helped her and that she doesn't need the pills anymore. She tells the reporter (the world) that she was suffering from post-partum depression and dealt with it on her own because she didn't want to worry her husband or her child. "I'm better now," she says, hands folded in her lap. Her hair, up in her signature bun, shines under the summer sun. "I think the Foundation ought to put some money toward recovering mothers."

-

Maria comes home in the summer. Howard tells her to never do something so stupid again. Ana gives her a hug and cries into her shoulder. Jarvis smiles and says he's happy she's home. Tony stands in a corner and watches with big, frightened eyes.

Maria tells Howard to take his own advice. She hugs Ana back and pulls the wet fabric away from her skin. She gives Jarvis a serene nod and a small smile.

She looks at her son for a long, silent moment. "Thank you for finding me," she says, and leaves the room.

* * *

Maria Carbonell gives her son three things: her native language, perspective on the boundaries between men and women, and an insidious fear of abandonment.

Tony Stark gives his mother three things: a flower that will never wilt, the chance to fix herself, and an endless well of sadness.

* * *

Howard leaves for the Arctic within the week. He hasn't seen Maria since she walked in the front door.

When he goes, Maria is sitting in her garden. She wears pants and a pale brown shirt, her hands and her clothes streaked with dirt and stained with grass. A small hand trowel sits at her side, unused. 

Under the summer sun, Maria Carbonell digs a new plot into her garden with her bare hands. Several bags of seeds lay beside her, waiting. 

She marks out the plots herself, allowing no gardener to help her. This is her task and hers alone. 

She brings tools but rarely uses them, digging with her hands instead. Dirt finds its way along her arms, across her cheeks, under her nails. She speaks little to anyone, and spends most daylight hours in the garden. Ana worries, but her husband tells her that Maria has been eating the food he leaves in her rooms, so she doesn't interfere.

Tony watches from the window, sometimes. It is summer, so he gets to be home from boarding school. He doesn't go out to her, the memories of the last time he went to her in the garden weighing heavy on his heart, but when he can breathe through the ache in his chest he leans on the windowsill and watches her work.

Maria works in silence with bright eyes.

-

By the end of the month, Maria's new plants are showing themselves.

Raspberry bushes line the windows overlooking the garden, sorrel growing between their thorny stems. The red roses near the aspen tree have been dug up and replaced with their yellow kin. Under the aspen, among the anemone, bloom cinquefoil and stars-of-bethlehem. 

Maria overlooks her work with her hands on her hips. She still has dirt under her nails, but her arms and hands are clean. She nods to herself and takes a deep breath.

Then she goes to find her son.

-

This is what it means to be Maria Stark: 

You have forgotten how to say what you mean. You live in a world of gestures and looks and fake smiles. You sleep on the opposite side of the house from your husband and you run a charity that deals mostly with the fallout of your husband's weapons. You are the only child of your mother to survive to your fifth birthday. You are a woman, and all your life you have known that to stand out is to invite cruelty.

This is what it means to be Maria Carbonell:

You have forgotten that, when your husband asked if you thought you have a son or a daughter, you replied with "I'll love it either way." You chased oblivion and got dragged back because it wasn't your time to leave. You have the last gift your son gave you on your dresser. You have not spoken to your son in months, perhaps years. You look at your son and you no longer see your daughter's ghost: you look at your son and see your own failures.

This is what it means to be Maria:

You have failed, terribly, repeatedly. You pray that you have not failed irreparably.

-

Tony, thankfully, is not in his father's workshop. He is sitting at the kitchen table, reading an engineering magazine, legs kicking back and forth idly. The threshold creaks under Maria's feet as she enters. He looks up and freezes.

Maria takes a deep breath and clasps her hands together nervously.

"Mi dispiace, mio carino." (Step one: apologize, so long as it is meant honestly.)

"I didn't understand what you... I was afraid of what you would face. I didn't want to see you get hurt. I'm so sorry I wasn't there for you." (Step two: offer an explanation, not excuses. Leave the blame where it belongs.)

"You're still my baby. I'm sorry it took me so long to realize that." (Step three: offer the olive branch, without demanding that it be accepted.)

"I love you as you are. I think I'll miss what I could have had with a daughter, but I don't have a daughter. I have a son, and I've hurt him, and I'm  _so sorry_." (Step four: acknowledge transgressions and the pain that resulted. Do not pretend to be the injured party.)

Her ribs squeeze painfully tight around her pounding heart. She doesn't look down or away, keeps her eyes open and on her son, no matter how much it hurts to watch his expression change from surprise to confusion to disbelief to the kind of hope that strangles you.

"I want to be better. If you allow me, I want to be the mother I should have been to you. You don't have to allow me, though - I hurt you and if you can't forgive me for that, I understand. But... if you want me, I'll be there." (Step five: ask for forgiveness; do not demand it. Remain open to rejection of the apology.)

Maria swallows around the knot in her throat. Her son's expression still sends icy barbs digging into her chest, but her pain is not what matters here. She's not leaving unless he wants her to.

What feels like an eternity passes in strained silence. Tony slides off the chair and walks across the kitchen, peering up into Maria's face with those eyes, so reminiscent of his father's. (That, too, hurts her. He reminds her of the Howard she married, the man who cared. One more selfish reason she pulled away from her baby, the child who needed her.)

Maria almost doesn't hear Tony's question over the thundering of her heartbeat. "Qual'e il mio nome, mama?"

She blinks at him. "What?"

His gaze is unwavering. There is so much of his father in him, the backbone of unwavering iron and the dark amber gaze that goes from warm to sharp in the space of a moment. "Qual'e il mio nome?"

It's the use of her mother tongue that makes her say, unthinking, "Antonio." His shoulders go stiff. "Tony," she corrects herself quickly, "Tony, mi dispiace."

He shakes his head. "No, that's... okay. You can call me that, if you want."

Maria bites her lip, debating whether she dares to push her luck. 

_Yes,_ she decides. She opens her arms.

One heartbeat, then two. Tony looks at her, careful, fingers twitching.

Three heartbeats. She begins to lower her arms, razor wire winding around her heart.

Tony throws himself into her, thin arms going around her waist. She closes her arms around him, buries her face in his hair, and rocks both of them gently. She says nothing about the growing wet patch on her shirt, only raises one hand from his back to stroke his hair.

(This, she remembers: her child, sniffling back tears, face buried in Maria's belly, hiding from everything bad in the world. This, she knows how to handle: a gentle but firm embrace, hushed reassurances in her mother tongue, steady sweeps of her hand through her baby's soft hair.)

* * *

This is what it means to be Tony Stark:

You say you are made of iron. You are not. Like everyone else, you are a mess of compounds and base elements smashed together into a melting pot. 

This is what it means to be the son of Howard Stark:

Your spine is iron, unbending and unbreaking and unyielding. Your fingertips are magnesium, radiant with power yet to be released. Your eyes are the color of three fingers of whiskey, dark amber that burns with leashed potency.

This is what it means to be the son of Maria Carbonell:

Your flesh is gold, malleable and alluring and desirable. Your heart is titanium, impervious to flame or poison or acid. Your smile comes in a hundred different forms, the slightest twitch the difference between desire and disgust.

This is what it means to be Tony:

Your blood pumps hot through your veins and your heart beats in your throat. Your voice is husky from the glasses your father makes you down to prove yourself worthy of his legacy. Your fingers are callused from work at the forge and the piano. You love the harmony of nature, rain drumming on the earth and birds singing the sky awake and flowers rustling in the wind. 

You are hugging your mother for the first time in three years. Tears burn down your cheeks and your mother's hand is cool in your hair. A blade you'd grown used to is gone from your chest and you are finally beginning to heal. You raise your face from your mother's chest, and through the window the sun is shining.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i Definitely didn't cry while writing this chapter what are you talking about  
> (are the parentheticals in the apology section me still being salty about cap's "apology" letter? yes. i will always be salty about that letter.)  
> love you guys!!! see you next update, wherein a new arc will begin!


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